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by Chris Munger
One thing I would like to jump into is the recent closing down of the NFL Europa League. For those who aren't familiar with NFL Europa, it's a minor league of some sorts to the National Football League where players that otherwise wouldn't make the roster of an NFL team, would get the chance to showcase their talents under the watchfull eyes of the 32 NFL teams. NFL Europa also was played in many cities throughout Europe, giving those cities a taste of American Football which suprisingly has a wide fanbase in that part of the world. The NFL closed the league down at the end of their 2007 season, sending all the players, coaches, referees and other league employees looking for new jobs, and now the NFL plays one, maybe two games over there leaving the European American football fan out in the cold. There are many wishful football players out there that are working at Arby's or Jiffy Lube because there just aren't many teams to play for, if you can't make it in the pros. Unless they don't want to get paid to play in minor football leagues where they charge players a fee to go play for their team. Football is the #1 sport in the United States and we have the NFL and Arena Football, just two leagues when baseball has hundreds of minor leagues, along with basketball and hockey with their teams paying some sort of compensation to their players and coaches. There are rumors floating around that pro-basketball Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban in concert with other billionairs will try to start a pro-football league that would try to rival the NFL but that's been tried before. Let's not forget the Xtreme Football League (XFL), United States Football League (USFL), and for you old-timers out there, the American Football League. The only other league besides the NFL that has had stable revenue is the Arena Football League, who prides themselves with not competing with the NFL holding their games in the spring. But there's this new football league we might be overlooking. All-American Football League, a league that plays its games in college football stadiums and has no team names. Take "Team Florida" for example, it has eight teams in its league and uses players that are out of college but don't make it in the NFL. The All American Football League was scheduled to kick off their inaugural season later this spring, but due to financial restraints, they have postponed to next year. Jo Pa, Joe Paterno the coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions football team recently turned 81 and has been coaching this team since the stone age (if you're familiar with college football), that's a great milestone but his team hasn't had a winning season in a few years and Joe wants to coach until he dies. Will someone tell this guy to hang it up? Speaking of hanging it up, Brett Favre, legendary quarterback of the Green Bay Packers has retired, sending shockwaves throughout the football world. Many thought that he would return this year for the simple fact that he has unfinished business losing last season's NFC Championship game to the New York Giants who you know went on to beat the undefeated New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Favre said he thought he could still play, but the stress of trying to get to the Super Bowl would be too much to handle, and he wanted to spend time with his family. So where does that leave the Packers, who were one game from the Super Bowl last year? They're left with young quarterback Aaron Rodgers who has close to no playing time and holds little experience in the league. The Green Bay Packers football team will never be the same without Favre, as they were a dormant team years before he was traded to the Packers from the Atlanta Falcons after his rookie year. If anyone caught Wrestlemania 24 this past Sunday, you might've noticed a pyro-technics mishap that injured 45 fans. The WWE is the premier pro-wrestling circuit that uses pyro for their shows. They use pyro on about 95% of their television broadcasts, and mishaps like this shouldn't happen, especially at pro wrestling's Super Bowl. The incident can be seen on YouTube.com where it shows a missle-like firework hit a section of the fans. Check back soon more reports on sports. Thanks for reading!
All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2008 by Nolan B. Canova.
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